부산대학교 도서관

In this work, we investigate the crucial effect of Er dopant on structural, morphological and optical properties of BiVO4 prepared by one-step sonochemical process. The Er doping content was varied from 0% to 10%. The structural and morphological characterization were performed by X-ray diffraction technique (XRD), Raman spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy. XRD and Raman spectra reveal the structural transition from monoclinic to tetragonal structure induced by Er dopant. Optical properties of the prepared samples were investigated by diffuse reflectance technique and the corresponding optical band gaps were calculated indicating two optical band gaps of two major phases of the doped samples. The Er dopant has highly influence on an enhancement in photocatalytic performance under visible irradiation of BiVO4 as doping content is 8%. This improved performance could be due to the size reduction and morphological change due to phase transformation induced by Er dopant accompanying mixture of optical band gaps that can assist the retardment of electron-hole pair recombination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]